Memoir of Old Elizabeth, A Coloured Woman

The Memoir of Old Elizabeth, a Coloured Woman (1863) was recorded when she was ninety-seven years old. Born a slave in Maryland in 1766, Elizabeth was exposed to religion at an early age, as both of her parents belonged to the Methodist Society, and her father regularly read to his children from the Bible.

When she was eleven, Elizabeth was sold several miles away from her family, and around a year later she experienced a dramatic conversion to Christianity. After briefly returning to her family, she was sold twice, the second time to a Presbyterian minister who freed her when she was thirty years old.